COUNTY OFFICE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 November 1938, Page 7

COUNTY OFFICE

EXTENSIVE IMPROVEMENTS EFFECTED INCREASED ACCOMMODATION ALL ROUND. NEW AND COMMODIOUS STRONGROOM. Extensive improvements recently carried out to the Masterton County Council’s office building in Masterton have made it one of the most modern and attractive in the town. Increased accommodation has been provided for the staff and public, while a new and commodious strongroom has been erected which is a model of presentday requirements. The building itself is about 35 years old and during that period very little in the way of alterations had been carried out until the ; present work was put in band. The question of remodelling the office accommodation was considered when it became necessary to remove the parapet from the roof of the building and 1 to reroof the whole structure in order to effect much-needed repairs. The council thought that the time was opportune to provide office and public facilities to .meet present-day requirements. After necessary repairs had been made the council agreed that the growth of work in the office necessitated a corresponding increase in the quantity of records requiring safe custody. As an extension of the existing strongroom sufficient to cope with these demands was . not conveniently possible owing to the shape of the building site while extra accommodation elsewhere would have proved a continued inconvenience and loss of time on the part of the staff, the council decided that the only way to overcome the difficulty was to provide a complete new strongroom in reinforced concrete. This structure was /added to the’ existing building without interfering with the layout and was made of sufficient size to give accommodation for all records and plans for many years to come. The strongroom is fitted up with the most approved accessories for systematic filing and is admirably lighted. As Ihe layout m the public office brought about congestion at the public counter, the council decided to make a rearrangement by utilising the existing partitions and materials and at the same time, with the removal of the old strongroom, it was possible to give greatly improved staff accommodation as well as more convenient facilities for dealing with uie general public. The area occupied by the old strongroom, which was demolished, was added to the staff office. This enabled the council to do away with the pay office at the back of the building and to add a pay counter at the rear of the building direct to the- main office. The public entrance was rearranged >to enable a more convenient means of ' access to the greatly enlarged public office, by absorbing the room previously used by the traffic inspector. Portion of the old public office was thrown into the County Clerk’s office, an adjustment that considerably increased the floor space of his office. The sum total of the alterations • is that ample accommodation has been provided for the County Clerk, the staff, and the public and for strongroom facilities. The interior has been finished off with panelling and in other ways brought into line with modern building practice.

The whole of the structural alterations were made by the County staff while other contracts were carried out by the following:—Joinery, Masterton Joinery Works; electric lighting, Wairarapa Power Board; polishing, Mr D. J. Gillespie; plastering, Mr G. Masters; signwriting, Mr S. Smith; painting, Mr C. N. Cole. The architect was . Mr Raymond Lee.